Commercial and military systems today are largely software based and growing in complexity. However, despite advances in development practices and tools, the goals of accelerating the rate at which systems can be delivered and reducing their costs cannot be met by simply writing software faster. In testing environments for network hardware and software systems, it is generally accepted practice to automate as many test processes as possible in order to reduce time to market and increase efficiencies on capital assets. The key benefits of test automation include reduced time to market, the ability to share capital assets and the ability to reconfigure test resources over a shorter time window (seconds or minutes vs. days, etc.) often from remote locations.
Some common elements in test automation scenarios are Layer 1 switches, traffic generators, traffic analyzers and impairment tools. The challenge that exists with test automation today is that it requires deploying costly and complex specialized test equipment and requires operating many complex and diverse testing tools.
As a result, it is desired to implement a system for network test automation tools that can reduce complexity and effort of setting up a network test environment and reduce the overall cost of testing while at the same time facilitating the consolidation of test labs and test equipment thus enabling 24×7 automated testing across the globe.